


Polar Night

by hereticalvision



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Durmstrang, HP: EWE, M/M, Norway (Country), Post-War, Snow and Ice, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 18:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticalvision/pseuds/hereticalvision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still in recovery from their break-up, Harry and Draco must travel through the arctic conditions of Svalbard to catch the last Death Eater still at large.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polar Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pink-mint](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=pink-mint).



[   
](http://s573.photobucket.com/albums/ss178/hereticalvision/?action=view&current=polarnight.jpg)

 

"How long do you intend to stand there, Potter?" Draco snarled in the voice of someone whose fur-lined robes were not keeping out the freezing wind as much as he had hoped. "I for one would like to be home some time before the end of the month."

Harry looked back towards Longyearbyen, the last town they would see until Selwyn was captured. Harry had expected that they would have to undertake the journey in pitch-black darkness but the permanent blue twilight of the polar night turned the snow on the ground into a brilliantly illuminated cerulean path.

Longyearbyen though was lit up differently, warm and soft and orange, beckoning him back to comfort and away from the chill soaking into his bones.

"I'm coming, Draco," Harry said as he turned to walk towards him over the ice.

 

*

 

Some were still surprised that Ron and not Harry had been made Head Auror, but the old friends had always known that while Harry was a leader, Ron was the chess master. He knew how best to use his resources and Harry was happy to let him for the most part.

Up to the point where he'd heard that Ron was planning to send Eddie Carmichael after Selwyn.

"What the hell, Ron?" he'd demanded, bursting into Ron's office. Someone was always bursting into Ron office; it was something of a bone of contention.

Without even answering Harry, Ron reached over to activate the intercom charm to his secretary. "Parkinson, how many times do we have to go over this?"

"Harry Potter is here to see you," Pansy Parkinson replied in a tone of supreme unconcern, the unmistakable sound of nails being filed audible in the background.

Ron looked as though he could cheerfully have throttled her, but then he got that look ten or so times a day and Pansy still had her job. Ron sighed up at Harry and cancelled the intercom charm. "Close the door."

Once Harry had taken a seat, Ron began. "Selwyn is hiding out at Durmstrang. There's an informant there who's made contact with the Ministry and is willing to help, but it's not as simple as flooing in – any whisper that we're about to beat the door down, Selwyn will be off the premises and we'll never catch him again."

"So what?" Harry demanded.

"So, Durmstrang is on an island called Edgeøya, up in Svalbard." At Harry's blank look, Ron said, "A group of islands in the arctic circle. The school has security so high it makes the Hogwarts defences look amateurish. The only way to get there without express permission from the Highmaster is to Portkey into Longyearbyen, the capital, get to the other side of the main island and then cross a hundred kilometres of icy sea. It's dangerous and it's at least four days' travel because magical means will set off the school's early warning system."

Harry blinked at Ron in non-comprehension. "Do you think I can't manage the journey? My fitness reports…"

"Harry, the contact will only speak to one person in the Ministry: Draco Malfoy."

 

*

 

"Tell me again why we couldn't just Floo in."

Harry gritted his teeth. He had promised himself that he'd be kind to Draco in light of everything he'd been through, but he could get up Harry's nose like no one else. From the way Draco had been sighing and snorting and whining under his breath anyone would have thought Harry had brought him here for _fun_. "Element of surprise. Jurisdiction. Deniability. I don't know, Draco, pick one."

Draco snorted. "I got stuck with this because of my friendship with Poliakoff. Why, precisely, couldn't I just have sent him an owl in the first place?"

Harry had made the mistake of remarking on the fact that Draco had apparently kept up a correspondence with a boy from Durmstrang since their fourth year of school; Draco had narrowed his eyes and said, "We are not all as socially incompetent as you, _Potter_." That had more or less been the end of the conversation.

"Jurisdiction," Harry repeated flatly. "Element of surprise. Deniability. Or try this: we can't use a Portkey because there's no one who knows the school well enough to make one for us. We can't Apparate because of the charms on the school. Ron said that we should be able to cast spells on the main island, Spitsbergen, but any of the usual means of travel would draw too much attention. So we're skiing. Besides, Draco, since when do you object to physical exertion?"

He hadn't meant anything by it, he really hadn't, but once it was said Harry could have bitten his tongue out. He wasn't looking at Draco but he could _feel_ the way Draco's body stiffened. He closed his eyes for just a second and saw Draco above him, his face flushing and smirking. "You don't think we're finished yet, do you Potter?" he'd asked breathlessly, the long line of his throat just above Harry's mouth as he ground their cocks together and Harry had arched up, too tired to get hard, too turned on not to.

Harry opened his eyes to snow over rock. "I meant Quidditch at school."

"Right, Potter," Draco sneered, not looking at him either. "Let's just get moving so that we can get this done and go back to ignoring one another."

"Right." Harry forced down the flash of emotion at Draco's words and straightened his shoulders to keep himself walking.

 

*

 

Longyearbyen was on the coast, a row of brightly coloured buildings defying the relentless arctic white-blue-grey. Inland, it was all uphill and miles to go.

Snow crunched under Harry's dragonhide boots, out of time with the rhythm of Draco's steps just up ahead.

They did not speak. There were few topics between them that were safe. Not politics or Quidditch or any of their interests. Not the war, not their school days, nothing of their shared past. And Merlin knows, not how it ended. Absolutely not how it ended.

Draco was still beautiful in his strength, always. Even now, covered in fur and keeping himself warm through exertion, his spine was straight and he walked with relentless purpose. He was always trying to prove that he wasn't the boy anymore who'd had to be pulled from Fiendfyre, too afraid to help himself.

"Are we far enough yet?" Draco's voice broke into Harry's thoughts.

Harry looked around. They had reached the top of the ridge: it would be flat or downhill most of the way from here on. "We're far enough," he nodded.

Draco pulled the apparently empty backpack off his shoulders to reach in and pull out two sets of cross-country skis and two sets of poles.

Harry took one pair and clipped them to his boots; the charm in them automatically fixed them there.

"I’d never done this before about a week ago," Harry said, desperate for some semblance of conversation between them.

Draco fiddled with his own skis. "No, of course not, Potter. Skiing holidays weren't exactly part of your family year if I recall."

Harry flushed. He'd told Draco about growing up in Little Whinging one night as they lay in bed, sleepy and sated. Draco had listened and then said calmly, "I hope you will understand that it isn't a recurrence of my old prejudices if I say I would happily murder all three of them." Harry had had to kiss him for that.

"You remember how to control the charm?" Draco asked now, his face still impassive.

Harry forced down the flare of anger. This was Draco's way of coping; he should know, he'd seen it often enough. But he was so tired of all the ways Draco shut him out and this just made the hurt place inside him bristle again.

"I remember," he said shortly, picking up the poles and bending his knees slightly. The trick, Draco had told him once long before, telling him about his own joy at crossing swathes of snow, was to hold your wand parallel to the ski pole, perpendicular to the skis. " _Adcelero!_ "

At once he shot forward, sliding easily across the snow. It's dangerous, he'd been warned. If you smack into something or you lose your balance, you can break bones. But Harry felt as natural and free as he did on a broomstick.

Being with Draco used to make him feel that way – as though the ice beneath him, or even his bones, might shatter at any moment. But the sheer joy of it kept him going, kept him alive.

He smothered the thought.

 

*

 

Harry had been out for five years, and single almost that long. He'd never managed to experiment much through his teenage years, the relentless pressure of Voldemort rather preoccupying him, and so when he found himself seventeen and free of it, nineteen and having made a rather unexpected discovery about himself, twenty and just plain horny, he'd caught up for lost time with vigour.

By twenty-five, however, he was starting to wish for a connection that didn't end with a gasp and a moan and a polite excuse. He was wishing for someone to love.

He certainly didn't think Draco Malfoy was going to be that person.

Malfoy was always sort of around, that was all. Campaigning in the Wizengamot to reintegrate society. Writing counter-point articles drawing parallels with Muggle history of all things, pointing out that too-harsh punishments in the past had merely led to future unrest and that this must be avoided if the wizarding world was to survive.

Harry kept stumbling across him. At first, Malfoy was wary of him. He was much more polite than Harry had realised Malfoy knew how to be: "Morning, Potter." "Excuse me, Potter." In all honesty it unsettled Harry more than a little.

Then one morning Harry was on his way back to the office from one of the courtrooms when he encountered Malfoy pounding his fist into the corridor wall.

Harry reached at once for his wand, but the image of Malfoy soaked and bleeding on the floor prevented him; instead he found himself catching hold of him.

"Let go of me, Potter," Malfoy had cursed as Harry used his training to physically restrain the man struggling against him.

"Calm down," Harry said over and over. But it was the words, "Do you want me to have to arrest you for vandalising Ministry property?" that snapped Malfoy out of it.

He went limp in Harry's grip. "Go ahead," he spat, his posture slumped but his attitude far from cowed. "Throw the damned lot of us in jail."

It took another moment and an odd look from Malfoy for Harry to realise he'd held longer than he perhaps should have. "Instead of creating a scene which will _make that happen_ ," he said firmly, "why don't you go for a drink?"

How Harry ended up going with him he's not absolutely sure of. But he ended up watching Malfoy sink Firewhiskey after Firewhiskey, ranting a list of all the ways he was trying to make a difference, and failing.

Harry would later wonder if what drew him to Malfoy was the way he could feel Malfoy's frustration and recognise in it his own disappointment, his pain at the knowledge that winning the war hadn't made the whole world right again. He would wonder if it was the rigidity of his spine, the way he was getting nowhere but his spirit remained undefeated. But he was aware that more likely it was just the way Malfoy kept catching his eye, kept creeping into his thoughts. The way he'd been obsessed with proving that Malfoy was evil, obsessed with unlocking his secrets and laying Malfoy bare before him.

"I know," Malfoy said, his face turned away from Harry's, "I know we can't be forgiven. I know it."

"So you try to make up for it," Harry said, as though his brain wasn't screaming at him about the shape of Malfoy's mouth. "I've seen you around. People talk about what you're doing – mostly you're pissing people off, but at least they're thinking about the issues again. That's a start, right?"

"Tell me, Potter," Mafoy said, apparently focusing on him for the first time in a while. "Would you hire a known Death Eater?"

"In the Auror office?"

Malfoy waved his hand. "All right, even I can see that's not necessarily the best idea." But his tone was disappointed.

Harry sighed, cursing himself for what he was about to do. "All right, Malfoy. No one who wore the mark, no one who fought. There would have to be a number of tests, and a trial period. And I'll have to convince Ron, so be careful who you pick. What?"

Malfoy was looking at him like he'd grown a second head. "You… You're going to help me?"

"I'm going to help you," Harry said.

 

*

 

The route across the island of Spitsbergen from Longyearbyen to Revnosa skirts the edge of a glacier. Glaciers are dotted around all of Svalbard. They are trapped turbulence, winter in solid form gleaming jewel-bright on the surface even in the polar night. But compressed carbon is solid right through: a glacier is not static. Beneath its surface it has currents and must expend effort to keep itself whole.

As Harry passed the glacier, he eyed it warily, anticipating an ice stream. None came. The glacier remained impenetrable, unperturbed as he and Draco skied beneath its shadow.

The wind tore at the skin on Harry's face. The muscles in his stomach ached with the effort of keeping him balanced. He had never thought to consider how much hard work skiing might be.

It did mean that he was quite warm enough without having to recast the warming charm.

Draco had overtaken Harry some time ago, clearly more practiced than he. Harry was afraid they might lose one another somewhere between one coast and the other, but the valley they slipped through now was virtually featureless. Draco's dark green cloak was the only thing Harry could see though he could barely make it out in the light and wished Draco had opted for something more visible; Harry was in red.

He and Draco always had been a study in contrasts, which is likely why so many people were surprised when they began working together. Malfoy the strategist, Harry the blunderer. Malfoy the pariah, Harry the hero. Malfoy no longer made himself unpopular by demanding strategic hires from Ministry departments, but instead told Harry who might be sympathetic, and who might be good for which department. For his part, Harry would talk to the people in question, though he sometimes did have to draw the line. There would always be some who the Ministry would never be able to accept or trust.

"Would you care to comment on why you're working with Draco Malfoy of all people, Harry?" asked Rita Skeeter.

"Not to you," Harry replied.

Later, after the nature of their relationship went public, a lot of nasty allegations were made, but Harry didn't help Draco because of sexual obsession or love potions or any of the other things the _Daily Prophet_ would eventually write about. He did it because he was tired of having to take someone else with Death Eater associations to St Mungo's half-dead and arrest the person who beat them. He did it because the rumblings about the fringes of society worried him. He did it because he couldn't leave the battles at the door when he went home at night; the war was in his mind and he wanted to make sure it would never be out in the world again.

He never asked Malfoy why he was doing it. Skeeter said it was for personal gain, speculating wildly about how Malfoy intended to take over half the Ministry. Harry had seen where the people who couldn't get work ended up – people whose only crime was to belong to a suspicious family. The whole world wanted revenge and Harry just couldn't stomach it.

That was how Pansy ended up in Ron's office, and for all Ron's grumbling about her he was twenty times worse whenever she went on annual leave.

Harry and Malfoy had gone together to the 'interview'. Harry had been a little confused himself at the choice of Pansy Parkinson, but Draco had raised his eyebrow in the way that was shorthand for 'trust me'. Pansy meanwhile had behaved as though the idea of selling Harry out to the Death Eaters had never crossed her mind, oh no, not at all.

The tone of Ron's voice when he blurted out, "Parkinson?" had made Harry flinch, convinced it was all over before they'd even had a chance to try convincing him.

Then Pansy crossed her arms and said, "Do dry up, Weasley. By the state this office is in you should be begging me to take this job. And I bet you're constantly sleeping with the secretaries too, aren't you, you ridiculous Viking, so they cry and then they leave and that's why you can't keep one for more than three months – oh, yes," she said at his look. "Potter mentioned. Well, fine. The place is a dump and if you so much as glance in the direction of my breasts I will not so much sue as snap off your fingers. Now, where's the coffee machine?"

Ron had made a vague gesture, slack-jawed. Pansy eyed him as though observing the habits of the greater freckled moron, then in a sweep of long dark hair and expensive perfume she was along the corridor and away.

No one had spoken for a long moment. This was when Kingsley Shacklebolt, behind Ron, had chimed in, "I think she will do nicely."

Harry and Draco had left the Ministry practically choking on their efforts not to laugh.

"I've never," Harry gasped, "seen Ron so thoroughly demolished."

Draco grinned. "That's my girl."

"It'll do him good," Harry said, shaking his head as he straightened up. "He really has been going through a parade of secretaries ever since he and Hermione broke up. But Pansy's got you, of course, so…" Harry felt a bit awkward alluding to it, but there it was. Draco had Pansy. He was not on the menu.

Except, Draco had raised his eyebrow into the arch of confusion. "Pansy's got me?"

"Yeah, so she won't be tempted… with Ron, I mean." Harry couldn't look at Draco when he said that.

Draco shook his head. "Ah. So that's why you haven't made a move. I thought perhaps I was just slipping. I mean, I've been virtually throwing myself at you for months."

"What?" Harry barely had time to ask before Draco's hands were on his shoulders, pulling him into a very firm kiss. At least, it started that way, lips together, just a hint of tongue. Something shivered in the air between them, something tender Harry hadn't realised would be there. And then his mind finally came to realise that what he'd wanted but thought he would not be allowed to have was right _there_ and he returned the kiss, fierce and desperate.

Harry pulled back to look at Draco to find his eyes almost entirely pupil, his mouth a little bruised. "Come home with me?" Harry asked and Draco's answer was another kiss.

That was the first night.

 

*

 

At Revnosa, ink-black sea met blue-white shore. Harry's heart lifted when he saw it, then sank a little as he realised that it meant facing the fact that he and Draco weren't silent because they could not speak, but because they had nothing between them to say.

The sea of Storfjorden separates Spitsbergen from Edgeøya, which shone solid as a jewel on the horizon. More ice, more cold, twenty kilometres of sea. Draco had already stuffed his skis into the bag and held it out wordlessly for Harry to do the same with his. The Undetectable Extension Charm never stopped being useful.

As they approached the shore, Draco stopped dead, holding up his hand in a quelling motion.

"What-?" Harry started to ask before he saw it: a small hovercraft with someone apparently making repairs to the engine.

They had their own boat in Harry's backpack, stored as a book but ready to be transfigured back to its original form.

"Why would anyone else be out here?" Draco wondered aloud.

Harry didn't know. "Think he's something to do with the school?"

"I doubt it," Draco said. "Durmstrang has a ship, that's how they obtain supplies, and it sails from mainland Norway to the southmost point. So why is he here?"

"Maybe we should…" But the man had turned and seen them.

He raised a hand in unconcerned greeting. "God dag! Hvem er dere?"

"I'm sorry, I don't speak Norwegian," Harry called back.

"Ah. English, then?" The man took a few steps towards them. His face was almost entirely covered with a busy beard but his eyes were friendly as he said, "What are you doing out here?"

"Skiing," Harry replied cheerfully.

Draco glared at him and he didn't immediately know why, but then the man said, "No skis?"

"Er," Harry cleared his throat.

"I broke one," Draco said smoothly. "We must have stumbled in the wrong direction."

"You're lucky I found you," the man said. "Alone in Svalbard? You're lucky to be alive!"

Draco nodded. "I'm Drake," he said. "This is Harry."

"Kjetil," the man said. "I can take you back to Sveagruva, get you out of here."

"We're fine, really," Harry said. "We were heading for Edgeøya."

The man frowned. "Why? There's nothing there."

"Research party," Harry said smoothly, the agreed cover story. "If we just get back on track they'll have everything we need when we get there."

The man nodded doubtfully. "And how were you planning to cross Storfjorden?"

Draco smiled. "Here's how you can help us."

*

Kjetil didn't ask many questions, or any at all, come to it.

Draco had curled up at the end of the boat, but Harry sat by Kjetil, talking to him.

"You live in Svalbard then?"

"All my life," Kjetil said cheerfully. "Polar night and midnight sun."

Starved of conversation, Harry asked, "I know I've been told, but how long does the polar night last here?"

"Four months," Kjetil replied, absently scratching at his left forearm.

"Four months of this darkness? How do you bear it?"

"There's four months of daylight in the summer," Kjetil pointed out. "And between, two seasons of twilight when the sun hangs at the horizon as though stuck between two thoughts. It dances around our heads like a halo."

"You're very romantic about such a bleak place," Harry said. "I couldn't imagine growing up here. Is your family still here?"

Kjetil frowned. "I don't remember my family."

"Oh," Harry said, embarrassed. "I'm sorry – I shouldn't have assumed. My parents died when I was very young, too."

Kjetil opened his mouth as though he would say something else, but Draco looked at Harry then, something naked about his face.

"Yeah," Harry said, looking away, cutting off whatever Kjetil had been about to say. This thing with Draco was all just so raw and it _hurt_. Harry forced himself to think about something else.

It was better to make this approach the Muggle way. The closer they got to Durmstrang, the higher the risk in using their wands. And the hovercraft had no problems with the sea-ice, something he'd been warned might happen even to a magically-propelled boat. They were not travelling over water but a congealed sludge which couldn't have held their weight if they had tried to walk, but would have been too firm for the boat to slice through easily.

Neither one thing or the other, Harry thought.

"You never mentioned what you were doing out here, Kjetil?" Draco asked and when Harry looked again his armour was back in place.

Kjetil indicated a box on the deck. "Photographing the glaciers. They're shrinking every year and we have to keep track. The weather's going crazy too, you know. Used to be like clockwork, when we'd get snow, how much. Now every year the ice shrinks, blizzards come from nowhere." Kjetil shrugged. "We keep records. I don't know, some people prefer unpredictable but here it can kill you. The hard times are worse when you don't know they're coming."

The shore of Edgeøya looked more or less exactly like the shore they had left behind, except for a few walruses perched further along the basalt jutting into the sea.

Kjetil looked at Harry and Draco doubtfully. "You seriously think you can find your party? When you said straight across I thought you must have co-ordinates or an idea of where you were going or something."

Draco smiled. "We'll be fine. If you could just take us ashore here."

Kjetil shook his head. "I can't just leave you on the island without knowing how you're planning to survive. This is the arctic, you have to respect the conditions here. And you don't have a rifle - there are polar bears on that island."

"Really, we're fine," Harry said. He looked at Draco desperately; he didn't know if he should risk using a memory charm so close to the island but the only other thing he could think of doing was knocking Kjetil out and it seemed a terrible way to repay him for his kindness.

"But thank you so much for your concern," Draco flirted and Harry's eyes narrowed. What was he doing? "We're so grateful," Draco went on, inching closer to Kjetil who seemed confused rather than alarmed.

"I…" Kjetil got out before Draco had grabbed him and slammed their mouths together. Even though the hood of Draco's cloak met the hood of Kjetil's coat, concealing the kiss from view, Harry flinched.

Then Kjetil pulled away with a "Wha-?" before his eyes rolled up in his head.

Draco nodded to himself. "Good. Shall we go?"

"What did you do to him?" Harry demanded. Draco looked up, eyes gleaming. _I'm not yours anymore,_ his smiles seemed to say. _I owe you nothing._ Harry gritted his teeth.

"Weasley's Patented Daydream charm," Draco said casually. "In new capsule form for easy in-office consumption. Kjetil's going to come out of it in twenty minutes and not know for sure whether he even met us."

Harry blinked. "That's… very clever. Why did you have that?"

"Three days alone with _you?_ I knew I would need some form of entertainment," Draco said, but his tone was more conspiratorial than venomous for once.

Harry could not, however, help asking, "Did you have to kiss him?"

Draco pulled his ski glasses back over his eyes. Harry hated it when he couldn't see Draco's eyes, there was absolutely no way to tell what he was thinking. "That was just for fun. Do you want to argue about it all day, or can we get ashore and out of sight? Twenty minutes isn't very long, Potter."

*

"I have to go to work," Harry objected half-heartedly, Draco's weight on top of him making him squirm.

Draco nipped his earlobe between even teeth. "Just five more minutes. Maybe ten. Ten minutes isn't very long, Potter."

"Is it even long enough to…" But his words were cut off by a gasp as Draco's hand slid down his body.

He was late to the office.

"Good thing Kingsley's promoting me, not you, with this lackadaisical attitude of yours," Ron said, shaking his head.

Harry smiled. "Long word for you."

"I lived with Hermione," Ron said, deadpan. It didn't make him flinch anymore; that was progress.

"Taking Pansy with you?" Harry asked.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Kingsley made it a condition, if you can believe that."

"I'm the best damn thing that ever happened to you, Weasley," Pansy drawled, appearing from the coffee room with a newspaper under her arm. Ron reached for the cup in her hand; she stopped him dead with a glare, sipping it herself.

"Potter," she said, causing Harry to look up at the seriousness of her tone. "Potter, why don't you go into Weasley's office. There's something the two of you need to see."

Ron's grumbling took them into the room; Pansy pulled the _Daily Prophet_ out from under her arm, and there on the cover was a photograph which must have been taken the night before, when Harry and Draco went into Muggle London. The two of them were in a private box, Disillusioned so that no one should even have been able to see it, never mind photograph it. In the photograph, Draco was holding a cocktail and looking down at the stage, his expression full of his typical wry amusement which Harry knew meant he was happy. Harry though – his face was so open. Draco whispered something to him and turned away, and as soon as Draco's back was turned naked adoration leapt across Harry's face.

Words danced in front of Harry's eyes – Death Eater's son, love potions, hero fallen from grace. Is this why Harry Potter testified at Malfoy's trial? Is this the boy hero we thought we all knew?

Pansy cleared her throat. "Draco's going to take this hard," she said, her voice soft. "He's going to worry that you'll think some of this is true."

"I wouldn't," Harry protested at once. "I wouldn't."

Ron rubbed the back of his neck. "All right," he said grimly. "Harry, go down to Internal Affairs and let them run the tests on you to check for Potions and Imperius. If you need someone you trust, get Hermione to go with you."

"You don't think…"

"No, but I do think we'll need proof that we at least looked into it," Ron replied. "Once you're done down there, go find Malfoy. Pansy, get drafting one of the standard PR pieces and I know how you're feeling but keep the venom out of it. Harry, why are you still here?"

Ron hadn't always been a political thinker, but he had always been better at it than Harry, who swallowed now and, at Pansy's nod, he went to Internal Affairs before he left for home.

Draco was already there, his shoulders squared in case Harry was going to choose to hurt him, his body language defiant and wary, the scent of him still clinging to the air in Harry's flat.

"I love you," Harry blurted out.

Whatever Draco had been expecting him to say, it was clear that particular sentence had never occurred to him as an option. His eyes widened to the point Harry might have wondered if they were going to fall out. Then his whole face slammed closed.

"You should know," he said, "that it is unlikely that this side of things will become easier. If anything, it's going to get harder."

"I've had problems with the press before," Harry said, taking a step towards him.

Draco swallowed. "And some serious questions are going to be asked about your ability to do your job. People might wonder just how far I've gone to corrupt you. If I've slipped you a love potion, or…"

"Routine checks are mandatory in the Auror office, you know that, Draco," Harry said, taking another step. "I know you think this is me just blundering in half-cocked-"

"Oh, because that would be so out of character for you!" Draco blurted, his voice shaking a little. "You go off on these dangerous assignments all the time and I never know if you're going to come back or if you're going to get your idiot neck broken and…"

Harry had crossed the room by then; Draco was close enough to touch so Harry did just that, reaching out both hands to touch Draco's face. "I'm not leaving you," Harry said softly, understanding Draco's fear. "I'm not. I promise."

Draco's breath shuddered and his arms came around Harry's shoulders. "We can do this," Draco said, his voice belying the sure and certain words.

 

*

 

As Harry and Draco prepared to cross Edgeøya, a rather nasty surprise awaited them: the _Adcelero_ charm wouldn't work.

Draco tried it first, cursed and looked at Harry. Harry frowned, tried it himself. He raised his wand then and tried to do something, anything - he couldn't even make sparks of light.

"There must be a block on magic here," he concluded.

"Excellent observation, Potter," Draco snarled. "Let's just get moving."

The journey was much harder without magic to drive them onwards. They barely made it even far enough out of Kjetil's range to be certain that he hadn't caught sight of them.

There were recent signs of life here where there had not been on Spitsbergen. There had been birds at the shore, though nothing Harry recognised. He had been expecting creatures out of _Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them_ but instead the only thing he had been certain of was that the white-blue shape on the horizon had been a polar bear which disappeared now into the shadow of another glacier.

A glacier may be diamond-hued, but compressed carbon is solid right through: a glacier is not. The inner workings are not static. Beneath its surface it has currents and must expend effort to keep itself whole.

The promise never to leave is easy to make. Harry had never been one for promises he did not intend to keep, but intending and managing were different things. That was one of the hard things he'd learned going from being the Chosen One to the man grieving parents turned to when desperate to see their children returned to them. "I'm not leaving you," was a promise as hard to fulfil as "Nothing is going to happen to her."

Harry had meant all of it. He had weathered the questions about his competence, his loyalty and his sympathies. He had accepted all of that much more easily than he had the abrupt resurgence of articles reviling everything about Draco from his family and his past right through to endless questions about his 'true motives' in dating Harry.

Harry didn't doubt him. Harry never doubted him. He would have thought that would have made Draco feel better but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

Timpani sounds abruptly filled the air as Harry skied, consumed by his own thoughts. Or was it a hammer tapping glass? A gunshot? Harry turned, startled. On the closest glacier, a blue dome of twisted spires collapsed into itself. Ice fell, starting a riptide, causing the river to swallow itself.

A whole leaf of ice spilled forward, shattering in slow motion to the earth below.

It only took one final straw to make the ice break.

 

*

 

Draco's voice and lips were trembling when he told Harry, "My father is going to be executed."

Lucius Malfoy had been in custody for years, his final sentence never officially decided upon; the Wizengamot simply holding him like an ace in case they had need of his services. But when news of Draco's relationship with Harry had reached him, he'd apparently been caught trying to conspire with the other Death Eaters still alive in Azkaban. Testimony had been brought against him, records of his mutterings about saving his only son from "that half-blood" and even trying to resurrect Voldemort.

If Skeeter hadn't happened to interview Carrow that particular day it might have been nothing more than the ramblings of a madman too long behind bars to do any damage.

But it made the front page of the _Prophet_ , and abruptly it was decided that Lucius was simply too dangerous to be permitted to live.

"That's not going to happen," Harry said. He was so sure the timing would be transparent, that he could bring people to support his cause.

But this time it was so hard.

There were still Death Eaters unaccounted for after all this time. The Dark Mark had been seen in the sky as recently as the previous year and though the culprit had been found, some Death Eater's son who missed his father, people were panicking. The opinion of the newspapers and therefore the public against Harry's relationship with Draco, but the idea that Harry was the unsuitable partner ignited outrage as nothing else could have. The mood of the Wizengamot had been similarly shifted, subtly moving from 'stubborn' to 'ugly'.

"They can't just decide to kill him after all this time!" Harry said to Kingsley. By that point he was already near desperate and begging, finding that doors which welcomed him only weeks before now closed as he drew close. Harry was so good to seek mercy even for him, the Wizengamot excused, but no. Lucius Malfoy must be silenced!

"They can and will, Harry," Kingsley said. "He's been in Azkaban for years but it is clear his ideas remain the same – he cannot be rehabilitated."

Harry swallowed. If even the Minister of Magic wouldn't help him… "But execution?"

"What would you rather?" Kingsley said simply. "A lifetime in Azkaban? The Kiss? This is the most merciful option we have."

Kingsley might have truly believed that but he didn't have to live with a Draco who had all but stopped eating, spending all his time researching old laws and customs to see if there was something he could do. Draco never slept, never smiled, just wrote to people his father had known and screamed in frustration when owls were returned unopened.

Harry brought him food; green apples, the kind he preferred. An endless supply of coffee. Usually Draco had a sweet tooth but all at once he wouldn't touch pastries or cakes and ate only fruit and raw vegetables. Blue circles of sleeplessness scored their way into the hollows beneath his eyes. The expression in them became ever more distracted until he barely looked at Harry at all.

Draco had never read the papers before but he read them now. He read all the same articles Harry did, about what was just and what should be done. "Last time we put our heads in the sand!" the Letters to the Editor read. "We cannot do it again!"

Every day Draco read the speculation of a hundred strangers about why Harry had gone and got himself involved with Malfoy in the first place.

Harry could have told them, but the reasons never sounded very good out loud: he stands up to me, he doesn't coddle me, he tells me the truth not what I want to hear, he never takes crap from anyone. Well and good, but the real reason was somewhere between the way his stomach twisted when Draco pushed him away for the hundredth time and the memory of Draco's sly sneer turning into a genuine smile.

By then Draco never looked at him, never mind smiled at him.

"I can't sit with you, I have to finish reading this for Father's case. I can't come to bed yet, I need to work on Father's case."

Lucius' case had already been decided; they both knew that. But Harry didn't dare say anything of the kind to Draco and so the two of them slid further and further apart, seams in the ice coming apart under the pressure of meltwater not deep within.

When they had first been together, when Harry had a particularly hard case, Draco sometimes complained into his ear as they curled up in bed, "Stop thinking so loud. It's keeping me awake." Harry always kept his eyes shut, holding back everything he could say into these small spaces between them, tightening his arms about Draco's body in lieu of speaking.

With Draco drowsy and safe in Harry's arms, that's when Harry cared least about what anyone else in the world might have said. It was dangerous, putting all his faith in the feelings between them and forgetting that the world outside was just as real, cold as Draco's body was warm.

 

*

 

After two hours' hard skiing, mutual unspoken agreement demanded a rest. The tent Harry had bought in case of emergency had a self-raising charm on it, which they had been told was hit-and-miss, but in this case they were lucky.

The warming charm was ecstasy. Harry stretched out, willing the warmth to sink into his bones while Draco went to make some calculations.

Draco stepped back inside. "Another three hours or so, if the pole star altimeter is correct."

"Not too long then," Harry said to himself.

"When we get there I'll go and talk to Nico myself first, I think," Draco said as he shrugged off his cloak. "The sight of you tends to spook people."

Harry presumed he meant Poliakoff, though this was the first time he'd heard that first name. "Draco, I know it's not really my business now." Harry knew he was on dangerous ground, but out the words came anyway. "Why would you want to track down Selwyn after what happened to..." He managed to cut the last word off but it was too late.

Silence fell.

Rip the plaster off all at once, they said in the Muggle world. Better to pull it away fast, it'll hurt less. Well, Harry had pulled and from the deadly way Draco was looking at him, he'd found a festering sore beneath.

"Bringing that up? Bad gamesmanship, Potter," Draco said, voice and eyes intent.

"I know," Harry said. He swallowed hard. "I know. I'm sorry, forget about it."

"Forget what, Potter?" Draco demanded, eyes ablaze. "Forget that my father is dead?"

"You know I didn't mean that," Harry said, temper beginning to rise. "Do you think this is easy for me?"

"Seemed fairly easy when you packed your things and left."

"Did it?" Harry snapped. "It seemed easy, did it, that I publicly denounced the decision despite half the Wizengamot telling me it was political suicide? It seemed easy to you that I was trying to support you without pushing my so-called allies into demanding your arrest? It seemed easy that I had to watch you tear yourself apart and push me away and…" Harry's voice cracked. Embarrassed, he turned away, Draco's eyes on him all the while. "I tried so hard - I didn't know what to do!"

"You let him die!" Draco

"I _tried_ ," Harry cried, a broken note in his voice. "I tried to save him but I couldn't and you..."

Draco made a choking sound.

"I didn't want to leave," Harry whispered. "Draco, I love you. But ever since Lucius died, I feel like you hate me and I can't live with someone who hates me."

Draco reached out for Harry then, wrapping long fingers about his wrist so that Harry could mimic the gesture, fingers about Draco's wrist.

"I needed you," Draco said, trembling all over. "I didn't know how to need you."

"I tried," Harry whispered, willing Draco to believe him.

"I know," Draco said softly. "I just... I wanted to hurt someone, I wanted to blame someone because it was so fucking unfair. And I needed you and I couldn't stand it."

Harry's breath left his body in a rush. He remembered the day, coming in to find Draco so hard and cold. Knowing that, "My mother needs me now," was both true and the most hurtful way Draco could possibly have left him. Because the house was still there and Harry was still living in it but he'd felt like he was alone long before Draco physically removed himself from the scene, and in the end taking a flat had seemed the only way to salvage some of his sanity.

"You were going to leave," Draco was saying now. "Why wouldn't you leave when it was so hard? I couldn't work out how to let you in and I knew you'd leave so I thought, why not make him leave now while I can still bear it. And in the back of my mind I kept wondering – if I'd given you up sooner, would they have stopped? Would they have let him live?

"Oh, Draco," Harry breathed, a knife twisting in his gut.

"I was wrong, Harry," Draco went on and Harry thought maybe he was crying. "I was so wrong and I need you. Harry, I need you."

"Yes," Harry said, and he leaned forward to touch his mouth to Draco's.

The kiss sent shards of ice through Harry's blood and made it burn. He clutched at Draco's shoulders and fisted one hand in his hair.

Draco clutched back just as hard, pulling Harry closer and closer, close as they could possibly get.

 _I missed you_ , Harry wanted to say, but that would have meant breaking the kiss and he couldn't have done that for anything. His hands were tugging at Draco's robes and Draco shuddered before moving to bite at the line of Harry's jaw.

Layers and layers of clothes were removed and dropped to the floor as familiar flesh was exposed. Harry ran his tongue along the line of Draco's collarbone while Draco moaned and his fingernails bit into the soft flesh at the nape of Harry's neck.

Harry worked his way lower and lower, scraping teeth over hipbone and Draco dropped to his knees to kiss him again. Their naked bodies pressed against one another, their erections rubbed together and Harry choked off a moan, his eyes stinging at the overwhelming sensation of being back where he had feared he would never be again.

"You left me," Draco whispered even as his mouth sought Harry's for another kiss.

"I'm sorry," Harry gasped into Draco's mouth. Their lips brushed again and again, and Harry managed one more, "Sorry," before he couldn't bear another moment of not kissing Draco. His tongue traced both of Draco's lips to part them. Their tongues met, the slick, wet slide disintegrating Harry's mind until there was nothing left but the press of skin against his body, hair in his hands, mouth moving beneath his.

Harry pushed Draco onto his back gently. Their eyes met: Draco's deep grey had melted from steel to pewter. Harry was almost sorry he couldn't see Draco in the light outside the tent, see what the luminous blue did to his pale, pale skin. But for now all he wanted was to bite a nipple, flick his tongue over a bellybutton, hear Draco's breathing pick up pace and feel the way Draco's hands kept tightening in his hair.

At first Harry only took the tip of Draco's cock into his mouth. It was enough to elicit a groan. Harry had done this to Draco a hundred times and he knew exactly where to touch, how to fondle Draco's balls and when to drive his mouth down to the root.

"Please," Draco whined, "please."

Harry used his hands to pin Draco's hips to the floor. He concentrated entirely on using his mouth, shifting the angle, ensuring that the head of Draco's prick hit the back of his throat as often as possible. He could feel his eyes start to water, his muscles start to strain with the effort of this on top of a full day's skiing but Draco had gone from whining to sobbing for release and Harry was determined to give it to him. He looked up to find Draco with his hands over his face, holding on for dear life. The cock in his mouth was changing texture slightly, becoming sloppier, easier to manipulate which meant - _yes_ there it was, come in his mouth. Harry pulled away, choking slightly, Draco's cum dribbling from the corner of his mouth. He was still so hard.

Draco pulled Harry up into a fierce kiss, tasting himself on Harry's lips and tongue.

"Fuck me," Draco pulled away to say.

"I don't have…" Harry began.

"Oil. There," Draco said.

That was it for words. Harry kissed Draco to shut out the thought that this had been planned, or at least anticipated. He grabbed the oil from Draco's backpack and kissed Draco again to keep himself grounded as he coated his fingers with it and tugged at Draco's balls once, twice before sliding his fingers back and, gently, inside.

"You're so _tight_ ," Harry gasped. His finger was being clenched so tightly, and it was only in to the first knuckle. At once Harry pulled it out and slathered on more oil. He thought about using his mouth to open Draco up, but he was so desperate already. He slipped a second finger into Draco too soon, felt his body jerk, but when he made to pull away, Draco grabbed hold of him.

"I want it," he said.

"You're too tight," Harry said desperately, wanting Draco so badly, but wanting even more for this to be good for him.

Draco made a noise of frustration. "All right, on your back."

Harry had to take a moment to untangle himself before they could switch position, still using their discarded clothes as an under blanket. He had just enough time to smooth down a wrinkle in Draco's cloak before Draco was clambering on top of him, soothing him with kisses as he reached behind him to line Harry's body up with his.

Slowly, slowly Draco sank down, using Harry's cock to work himself open. Whimpers and moans emerged from his throat, his brow furrowed in concentration. Harry focused all his will on letting Draco take it as his own pace, holding his hips still and watching Draco's face.

When at last he was fully inside Draco he clutched at the blond hair again and met Draco's searching gaze with his own.

"I…" Harry began, but it was too much like a promise and he swallowed it back. "Feels so amazing," he said instead. "So amazing," he choked out again as Draco began to move.

 

*

 

When Harry woke to Draco sleeping next to him, there was a moment when he didn't know where he was. He blinked in the darkness, wondering if it had all been a dream, if no time at all had passed. If he and Draco were back in London and none of the rest of it had happened.

No, definitely a tent in the arctic. The warming charm had lost some of its potency.

Harry stumbled into the central room. Their discarded clothes were still there on the floor, cum across Draco's best cloak.

He would not be pleased when he saw it.

Harry had not meant for that to happen. Not like Draco, with his conveniently located bottle of oil.

"Always planning ahead," he said fondly, reaching out to touch Draco's face.

Draco stirred, grey eyes opening to look at him, assessing even seconds after waking. "Morning."

"It could be, I suppose," Harry said, smiling.

Draco smiled back. Then, "Harry, I don't want to take Selwyn back."

"What?"

"I don't want to take Selwyn back," Draco said flatly. "Do you even know his story, Harry?"

"He attacked me the night the trace broke," Harry said. "He threatened to kill Luna."

"His brother was killed in the first war and he joined the Death Eaters for revenge," Draco said quietly. "He was so angry but he was sorry in the end. He didn't fight in the Battle of Hogwarts - he'd already deserted, even when it looked like the Dark Lord would win."

Harry swallowed hard. "Whatever kind of life Selwyn had, he still threatened to murder Luna and actually did murder Muggles, Draco, just because they didn't have magic."

Draco's jaw tensed; Harry saw that he had known that. "Harry, I can't do this," he said, and there was the truth, there. Not that Selwyn didn't deserve it but that Draco couldn't do it. "Shacklebolt insisted I come but I can't just take someone back to die. I can't."

"Kingsley? I thought that Ron-"

"Kingsley," Draco said flatly. "In light of my father's final failure he insisted that I come, with you, in order that no one questions either of us further about our loyalty – there have been rumours.

Harry had thought at the time that it was awful to involve Draco in this after what had happened to his father. He'd just assumed that Draco had worked out how to bury it and focused on other things.

Draco shifted. "It didn't precisely help that I tried to bribe some of the Wizengamot to save Father."

Harry blinked. It was hardly surprising. "I wondered if you had."

"Some of them took it; not enough," Draco shrugged. "It doesn't matter, Harry, not now, what matters is what happens now."

Harry ran a hand through his hair. Whatever else had gone wrong in the world, however much the definitions of punishments and crimes had shifted, Harry knew forever and always that the Death Eaters were evil. There was a dividing line between those who had participated in the wars and those who had not. Harry had never lost sight of that, even when he fell for Draco – Draco had not been a killer. The line was drawn right there. "I don't know if..."

"Harry, Nico is doing this for political advantage," Draco went on. "Selwyn hasn't hurt any of the students, Nico told me as much. He's just hiding. I know, I _know_ that for you this is about justice but the Ministry only cares about scapegoats. Don't you see that?"

Harry did see that. But that didn't make what Draco was saying right.

He needed time to think.

"I'm going to check outside," he said. "I... I won't be long."

Draco didn't speak. He nodded to himself, then lay back down as though he had expected this.

Pulling on his clothes, Harry stepped outside into the near-dark. This time the hypothermic temperatures were almost soothing.

Harry's wristwatch told him ten o'clock: presumably the night time ten o'clock but there wasn't really a way to be sure without casting a _tempus_ charm and he knew it wouldn't work.

The darkness was striated with grains of white. It was snowing just a little.

Harry stepped back into the tent just long enough to grab his skis, and then he was off into the darkness, just enjoying for a moment a true solitude. He didn't go far; the snow was still falling and the wind full of frost.

For their one and only Christmas together, he and Draco had gone to Hogsmeade, just the two of them. Neutral ground: no one's family, no one's in-laws. It had been rather lovely, Harry had thought. Staying overnight in an inn, turkey dinner prepared and brought to them. In the afternoon, they had gone for a walk and ended up having a snowball fight like children. Back in the hotel room it had been a cross, "Get off me, your hands are freezing!" followed by the usual chorus of moans. It had been a pretty good day.

Harry smiled. It had seemed so simple then.

He had skied as far as he could: a jutting glacier blocked his way and from here he would either have to turn back or ski in a new direction and risk getting himself lost. He still didn't know what to do.

If he took Selwyn back, Draco wouldn't blame him. But it would be the end of them.

This glacier seemed purple in the blue light.

There are warm glaciers and cold glaciers, defined by their core temperatures. In polar regions, you find cold glaciers. They don’t slide easily; they’re fixed and frozen to rock with no meltwater beneath and as a result they do not move far, or quickly. Cold glaciers are implacable, impenetrable. They protect the landscape and they regulate the surface temperature of the planet. Sometimes they recede, sometimes they advance, but above all they endure.

Draco would endure without him, Harry was sure of it. Harry couldn't let Selwyn go; it wasn't in his nature. Draco couldn't bring him in; it wasn't in his.

Harry paused his skiing, looking up into the impossibly clear sky full of stars he'd never seen in all his study of Astronomy. Polaris seemed in the wrong place and too bright; this wasn't home, this place of unbearable extremes, but Harry saw the beauty in it and almost wished he might stay.

A soft sound caught Harry's attention. To his left the very snow appeared to be wriggling. Harry frowned, trying to force his eyes to focus and was finally able to make out the shape of a polar bear cub. It was ignoring Harry completely, focusing on the fascinating business of rolling in the snow, making sure to get an even covering all over its white fur.

Harry found himself smiling at the innocence of the cub, the puppy-like motion of it. We are all driven by our natures, Harry thought. I don't know how to be other than what I am.

A snarl caught Harry's attention right before something smacked into him, sending him flying.

The mother polar bear had appeared from nowhere. Harry started. He had been too caught up in his thoughts to see the white bear on the white snow and now it was snarling at him. The white fur was the same but this bear had nothing of her cub's playfulness, nothing but the protective instinct of any family member at a perceived threat to another. She was huge, outweighing Harry and probably even Hagrid or Madame Maxime.

His hand automatically closed on his wand before he remembered that it was useless.

Polar bears are true survivors of the arctic: they will never waste good protein. They will not allow anything which gets near their children to survive. The bear roared at Harry, who tried desperately to think. There had been a contingency plan for just this situation but it needed magic – which Harry no longer had available.

The bear moved closer.

The sound of a glacier cracking filled the air. The polar bear flinched, roaring in fury and turning away from Harry to something behind him. Another crack. Not a glacier this time - a gunshot.

Harry turned to see Kjetil, rifle levelled at the bear.

"Kjetil!" Harry cried out as the bear charged straight past Harry and right at Kjetil. Kjetil stood his ground, firing off two more shots, at least one of which punched through the bear before the it reached him, but it did not stop the bear from biting into him, getting a good grip on his lower torso and spine.

Harry was running even before Kjetil cried out in pain. Fighting the bear would be suicide - _what was he going to do?_

But it seemed he would have to do nothing. The bear did not waste its time pulling Kjetil to pieces; she bit into him once, deep, covering the snow in viscous red, shook him then dropped him to the ground before whirling away from him, crying out in pain; Kjetil had managed to stick a knife into her and combined with the shot it seemed he had weakened her enough to make her run.

Harry froze, terrified; he had just enough presence of mind to dive out of her way as she ran past him, back to her cub. Without another glance back, she picked him up by the scruff of his neck and bounded off.

Harry stood still a moment longer, ensuring that the bear was truly leaving before he crashed to his knees in the blood-stained snow next to Kjetil. "Kjetil! Kjetil, oh Merlin, this is my fault."

Kjetil looked up at him. "You were in my dream," he said in his halting English.

Harry looked about frantically. He had been stupid, so stupid, leaving the tent without any of the supplied they had brought specifically in order to stay alive in this harsh place. All he had were his boots, poles and skis. No healing potions, nothing to levitate a patient now that he couldn't use his wand. Harry could have wept.

"Just stay with me," he said to Kjetil, wishing he could speak Norwegian and comfort the man. "I've got you. Just stay with me."

 

*

 

"Draco!" Harry felt as though he had been screaming for hours. "Draco!"

He had made a sledge as best he could from his skis, dragging it with his poles. Kjetil lay on it awkwardly, his body dragging through the loose top snow and all Harry could do was wish for the ability to use his skill in Transfiguration. He'd managed to use a layer of his own clothes to prevent their leaving a bloody trail through the snow – he didn't know how polar bears were at tracking but he was sure that a trail of blood would catch the attention of even the most unobservant predator. He just had to hope that the bear he'd seen wouldn't be chasing them soon, and she didn't have any friends in the immediate area.

Harry could see the tent. He knew that Draco would hear him soon if he hadn't already.

At last someone emerged, calling back from out of the silent twilight. "Harry?"

"I need help!" Harry shouted, still pulling Kjetil's sledge behind him.

Draco ran to meet them. When he saw Kjetil unconscious his face turned white and his eyes met Harry's in that look he knew so well – the look that they'd all had on their faces at one time or another when seeing someone who might not live through the night. The look that said, "I know how callous this is but thank the stars it wasn't you."

"Did he follow us?" Draco wanted to know.

Harry shook his head, the muscles in his body exhausted. Draco looked at him a second longer, then he was pushing Harry gently out of the way to grab the ski poles and drag Kjetil into the tent.

Once safely in range of the warming charm, Harry slumped onto the ground.

Draco had begun the business of pulling Kjetil's jacket away so that he could inspect the wound. "What happened?"

"Polar bear," Harry forced out, his breath still coming hard.

Draco's eyes widened. "Harry, are you-?"

Harry grimaced. "Kjetil saved my life. How bad is it?"

Draco looked at Kjetil and shook his head. "It's a bad bite, Harry. Gone pretty deep. Dittany would be the best thing."

"We don't have any," Harry reminded him, stomach dropping.

Draco met his gaze evenly. "There isn't a potion we have that can do the same job. We'll have to get him to the school on what we've got."

Harry swore. "There goes our quiet arrival."

There might have been a time when Draco would have said, "Let's leave him then." There might have been a time when Harry would have been so desperate to catch the bad people that he would have done it. Defeating Voldemort had been nowhere near as demoralising as the eight endless years of clean up that came after. But Kjetil had helped them, twice, and even if he hadn't he was a person and he needed their help.

Harry's breathing finally returned to normal, though the quiet burn in his muscles continued to throb. "All right," Harry said, thinking. "We can build a better sledge with the tent and we'll just have to keep going until we get him there. Draco…"

"I'm already working on dressing his wounds," Draco said. "I just need to - Oh no."

"What?" Harry asked, the change in Draco's tone catching his full attention.

Draco had stripped off Kjetil's clothes, baring his wounds for inspection. It had also bared his arms and there for the world to see was the Dark Mark.

"I didn't recognise him," Draco said, almost to himself. "He was skinny and kind of haughty looking. I didn't…"

For a long moment, neither of them spoke, just staring at Selwyn's beard-covered face.

Then Draco looked at Harry. "What are we going to do?"

 

*

 

Between Harry and Draco, the makeshift sledge carrying Selwyn just about moved across the snow. They had been managing fairly well until the blizzard started.

Harry had pulled his coat closed so that nothing but his snow goggles was exposed. He now carried the rifle, just in case another polar bear was to emerge abruptly from the endless white.

They would get him to the school. They would get him to the school and he would live. Harry could not allow himself to think any further into the future than that.

The horizon was striated with snow blowing horizontal through the sky. Harry was starting to realise that Kjetil had been right to warn them that they were under-prepared.

That the kindly Norwegian man who had helped them get this far was a murderer and a Death Eater had knocked Harry, despite the litany of people he had known whose natures had held equal measures of selfishness and giving, vice and virtue. He'd caught a lot of Death Eaters on the run in his time. Avery had sneered and tried to hit him with the _Cruciatus_ curse. Travers had tried to bribe him. None had helped him on his way.

Except… Regulus Black. Severus Snape. If Snape had lived, he would probably have ended up in prison for his part in Dumbledore's death and his actions as Headmaster. Harry may have been able to forgive the man after better understanding him, but he knew that Neville's hatred after that year of watching students tortured would never fade.

The storm was getting worse. The white lines in the air were becoming thicker and thicker, the sky darker. Harry wasn't even sure which way they were going anymore; they had relied too heavily on the stars to navigate by and now they were blotted out. Kjetil - _Selwyn_ had a compass but Draco was the one trying to use it.

The cold was seeping through the protective clothes and deep into Harry's bones.

Draco stopped without warning and turned to Harry. He shouted something Harry didn't catch at first, but made it out the second time: "We have to stop."

Harry looked behind him, to where Selwyn was safely wrapped in tent material and the warming charm. Frustrated he looked about him: he could see no glaciers, no landmarks, just the snow in his eyes piling onto the ice beneath his feet.

Reluctantly, he nodded. It only took them minutes to make camp but it as still time they could ill-afford.

Back in the tent Harry burst out, "He's going to die if we don't get him to that school."

"I know," Draco said, shaking snow from his cloak. "But if we go back out there there's a strong chance that we'll die, too."

Harry shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe that this is right next to a school!"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Forgotten the Forbidden Forest so quickly?"

Harry sighed.

Draco's gaze dropped to Selwyn on the floor. He was still unconscious; the healing potion they'd had had stopped the bleeding but that was as much as they could do for him.

"He doesn't have a wand," Draco said. "There wasn't anything in his belongings to show he was a wizard except this." From his own robes, Draco produced a Remembrall.

Harry looked at it, remembering Neville at age eleven, the Remembrall a gift from someone who cared about him. He brushed the thought away. "We can't let him go."

"Is it right to see him executed?" Draco returned.

Harry wiped his mouth. "I don't… Draco, we can't make this decision. You know that."

"Because the policy makers are doing such a magnificent job," Draco said bitterly.

Harry crossed to him in one motion. "Draco, I know the campaign didn't work last time – maybe we just went about it all wrong. Maybe there's a way we can change people's minds."

"The two of us?" Draco looked at him, his expression as open as Harry had ever known it. "Harry, you know how I feel about you but how many people were able to accept us being together? Who'll listen to us if we try again?"

"Ron, of course," Harry said at once. "Hermione tried and she's in a better position now. I know you're funny about Ginny but she'll have our backs – all the Weasleys will. Draco, we have to do this the right way."

"And in the meantime?" Draco pressed the Remembrall into Harry's hand. "What about him?"

Harry lifted the Remembrall to the light. Something inside it caught his eye.

"Draco, look at this."

Instead of the usual empty centre, the Remembrall shone silver-bright, long threads swirling together like the pool in a Pensieve.

"It's to remind me of something," Selwyn said from the floor, his voice weak. "I know that. But… Read the bottom."

Harry exchanged a look with Draco and tipped the Remembrall up. On the bottom an inscription read, _Live, Kjetil, and forget_.

Harry looked at Draco, white-lipped.

He turned to Selwyn. "You saved my life," Harry said. "You saved my life, and I need to thank you for that. But then I have to tell you this: You're a criminal." The words were flat and sounded so harsh falling from his mouth into the stillness of the tent. "You're a wizard and you're a fugitive and these are your memories."

Selwyn blinked slowly. "A fugitive?"

Harry nodded. "We came to take you for trial."

Selwyn shook his head. "That's not possible."

"He's dying, Potter," Draco said, his tone neutral.

Harry sat down heavily on the floor of the tent. He had hated the Death Eaters and chased them and felt justified in bringing them in one by one and then he had fallen in love with one and mourned the man who had slipped Ginny Tom Riddle's diary, and the whole thing was a mess, a terrible mess.

Draco was speaking with Selwyn now. "We believe there are memories in there. Your memories. Decide if you want to see them. We'll wait." He beckoned Harry into the next room; Harry followed. Draco didn't look at him as he sat down heavily on the floor.

"I don't know what's right anymore," Harry admitted.

Draco's mouth twisted. "I don't think I ever have."

 

*

 

"I didn't want to think it was possible," Selwyn mused, lying on the ground, the Remembrall next to his fingers. The storm was still howling outside. "But I don't remember so much. I don't remember being at school, I don't remember how I learn English. It's always just been this. My whole world was Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet and Edgeøya."

He spoke as though he was in a trance, every word pulled out of him by some force beyond his comprehension.

"I loved it here," Selwyn went on, his voice so tired. "But it was always a half-life. Couldn't ever go back and didn't know which way was forward."

"You had a brother you loved," Harry said, trying to find something to say. "And you did your best for him."

"But I'm a murderer?"

Harry couldn't look at him, looked instead at Draco who looked back steadily. Neither of them answered.

"Can you give them back to me?" Selwyn said. "My memories?"

Draco cleared his throat. "It might be possible. But my guess is that your mind has been subject to extensive tampering. If you can't even remember how the Remembrall works then I can only assume that knowledge was removed, too."

"It looks like my writing," Selwyn said.

Harry cleared his throat. "Then you didn't want the memories."

"I see," Selwyn said quietly.

After that he spoke only in Norwegian to people neither Harry nor Draco could see. Harry wondered about the different people he had been, who had loved them and who had been their friends.

Selwyn wouldn't have hurt anyone again, Harry thought. Maybe he did this to himself specifically to ensure that. Did that mean he shouldn't be punished?

Draco had hunched over himself in the corner of the tent. He looked up as though he could hear what Harry was thinking.

"This is kinder," he said.

In the morning, Selwyn had passed away.

 

*

 

Harry and Draco stumbled into the grounds of Durmstrang just at breakfast time, pulling a corpse behind them. The Highmaster had listened to their babbled apologies and looked impassive when he saw Selwyn's body.

It was Poliakoff who offered them food and shelter.

They accepted the former gratefully, but the latter offer caused Harry to say, "I just want to go home."

There had been none of the sure sense of rightness this time. None of the certainty edged with triumph. There had just been Draco, miserable and burning with it, and Kjetil dying with dignity.

Draco kept holding the Remembrall, rotating it in his fingers.

Poliakoff tentatively offered the use of his Pensieve; Draco answered at once, still distracted by the shapes of memories chasing one another through the sphere.

Draco had never spoken of his work in the Department of Mysteries, but Harry had seen his love of obscure objects and magics first hand.

Standing over the Pensieve, Harry asked Draco, "Do you think we want to see this?"

"I need to," Draco said sharply. "You do as you like."

Harry followed him, of course. And the memories were terrible: Selwyn's beloved brother going off to fight for the "extremists" and ending up in pieces. Selwyn, head full of revenge fuelled by prejudices much older than he, took the Dark Mark in the burn of wanting them to pay. And he threatened and menaced people, but never tortured them. He saw Bellatrix Lestrange with a prisoner and he was sick afterwards. He handed the Dark Lord his wand to use on Harry Potter, hoping only that it would end at last. He demanded cooperation from Xenophilius Lovegood and heard himself threatening a girl younger than his brother had been when he was killed. And he went to free her, but found her already gone; he'd touched poor little Draco Malfoy's shoulder and said something kind to him as the world fell apart and the real Draco squirmed to watch it. And he went back to his family's estate, fallen into ruin as the family fell apart, and he went into his little brother's room and he pulled a photograph to his face and said, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," until his voice broke at last and he pulled out his wand to make the memories stop.

 

*

 

Quietly, Draco said, "I wish he hadn't died."

Harry nodded. "Kjetil didn't seem the way I thought Selwyn would be. Selwyn was so cold - Kjetil was kind. And then… He was kind when he was Selwyn too, sort of. But he hurt people."

"People aren't ever only one thing," said Draco, a flicker of pain crossing his face. Harry knew he was thinking of his father.

"But when people do terrible things..." Harry swallowed. "I'm an Auror, Draco, that's who I am. I don't know if I can be something else, even for you."

"I know," Draco said quietly. "I know. But me - I have to quit the Ministry."

"What will you do?" Harry asked quietly.

"I don't know yet. I'm exhausted," Draco replied. "My father's dead, my mother's alone, my chosen career path has bitten me once too often."

They stood in silence a while longer. Durmstrang's quadrangle filled with fur hat-covered heads as students hurried to their classes.

It all seemed so simple then, Harry thought. I knew what I was trying to do, even if I didn't know how I was going to do it. Now I never know anything.

"There aren't any more Death Eaters," Harry said at last. "Selwyn was the only one left."

"What he said," Draco mused. "About empathy. Do you suppose there's a way... A potion, maybe. I used to be good at potions."

"What are you thinking?"

Draco frowned slightly, thinking his way through the problem. "If there's a way to make someone feel what their victims felt, make them understand what they have done... Maybe we could start by showing them the victim's memory of what they did – try to bring them to real remorse. That would be justice, wouldn't it?"

Harry nodded. "It would be. But… Draco, I offered Tom Riddle the chance for remorse. Not everyone has it in them."

Draco looked at him fiercely. "Some people do."

Harry let out a breath. "I know."

"If anyone could do it, I could," Draco went on. "But it would be quicker if I had assistants. I think you know someone brilliant who might be willing to help?"

"She might," Harry agreed, heart in his mouth.

"It's work worth doing," Draco said. He turned back to Harry. "Do stop tearing up, Potter, obviously I'm going to need you for this."

"Obviously," Harry echoed, starting to smile.

Draco tried to smile back but couldn't quite manage it. "I never – I never hated you," he forced out. "Not really."

"I know," Harry said softly. "I didn't want to leave."

Draco took Harry's hand. "You leave again and I'll kill you. Are we doing this?"

Harry smiled, wide and bright as glaciers, warm enough to melt the ice caps. "Yeah, we are."


End file.
